Clay Buchholz: ‘No restrictions’ in simulated game as hamstring comes through fine

FORT MYERS, Fla. — Clay Buchholz said he felt good after throwing 37 pitches in Saturday morning’s simulated game outside JetBlue Park. Buchholz says he still needs to work on his delivery from the stretch but other than that felt good with his command and his secondary pitches. Buchholz said he felt no ill effects from a very minor right hamstring strain in the first week of camp.

Buchholz threw his whole arsenal of pitches from the windup and stretch, struggling a little bit with his secondary pitches from the stretch in the second inning of his two-inning simulation.

“There’s no restrictions here. I felt really good,” Buchholz said. “The one thing that I definitely need to work on that I haven’t had the chance to is work out of the stretch. Didn’t really go in-depth with it. There were definitely some kinks in the delivery. Other than that, I felt strong. First and foremost, the arm feels really good. The hamstring is sort of secondary to that to me.

“There were no issues. I’ve been running the last couple of days, sprint stuff and I haven’t had anything holding me back so that felt good.”

Buchholz tweaked his right hamstring bending over to pick up a grounder in PFP drills on the first day of camp on Feb. 12. He fielded a high chop on the final pitch to Mike Carp on Saturday but he acknowledged that he hasn’t tested it full yet in game speed.

“I’ve done a little bit of that, too,” Buchholz said of fielding drills. “I haven’t gone completely full speed with that but it can’t be that far away I feel, just keep treating it and go from there.

“They told me four days ago if it was midseason and I needed to pitch, I could pitch. We’re basically treating this as we have two extra weeks here in spring training. There’s no rush for me to get back. I’m still going to have six, maybe seven outings in spring before we head north. I don’t think there’s anything that’s going to be holding me back in the next few days.”